


Faulting Omega

by lunartaurus



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Karkat Focus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-04-10 15:05:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4396544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunartaurus/pseuds/lunartaurus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat Vantas lives on an Earth with the last two years of his memories garbled, and the rest of them muddled between fleeting blips of Earth life intermingled with violent images of SGRUB that all of his friends deny ever happening. He fishes for answers while trying to adapt to Earth life and blossoming romances.</p><p>2016 EDIT: I am going to rewrite this & open a new story for it!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be totally fair and say I have a vague outline of where things are going, but I'm writing this on the fly and between college work/other stuff. 
> 
> I'm in it for the long haul, though. Will update sporadically/when I have time.
> 
> edit: I should say again that this is a Karkat-focused fic. The two ships that are going to get the most time are Rosemary and Katnep.

Earth air wasn’t clean.

Every day you woke up to a shuddering lungful, followed by Kanaya’s voice, a soft  _Turn Away_ , just this small sound from the other side of the room you shared. You would sometimes pretend to snooze–this never worked, even when kept your bulbs screwed shut, and she would promptly toss fuzzy slippers at you till you complied. Otherwise, you did as you were told, unscrunching yourself from a haze of sleepiness to roll onto your other side, facing the pale cream of the wall.

You liked this morning routine. The birds weren’t crying outside your window just yet, the one large window that took up half of the one wall facing the street, and the traffic was still a murmur. Every now and then, over salty eggs and ham, you would go on and on to Kanaya about how much better Alternia was in every single conceivable way, leaving out your screaming husk of an alarm clock.

Kanaya humored you, though she didn’t believe in _This Conveniently Absent Alien Homeworld of Ours’_ to which you had no good reply to.

You flexed your fingers against the bedspread, still faintly smelling of that Spring Breeze detergent from the dollar store, as Kanaya began her usual routine on her side. Eyes closed, you listened to the scuff of sheets as she made her bed, her morning yawn that made you tired all over again, pushing a dull ache back into your temples. After a moment, she padded across the rug to change behind the floral pink folding screen in the far corner of the room–it had a design of entwined roses, which you insisted was _BASICALLY PORNOGRAPHIC, CONSIDERING YOUR ONGOING TRYSTS WITH A PARTICULARLY INCISIVE INDIVIDUAL WHO *STILL* REFUSES TO GIVE NOTICE FOR IMPENDING PSYCHOANALYTIC SESSIONS TAKING PLACE IN MY VERY OWN HOME._

Sitting forward, you rub spots out of your eyes, put your feet on the floor and hobble downstairs with one leg still asleep. Today is like every other day, and you’re not fully conscious yet. You graze your palm on the railing taking the 11 steps down to the first floor, but when you blink, you see Sollux after the tumble, lax limbs splayed across the floor, a muddy angel of mustard blood haphazardly bleeding out from his gums, ah 

Kanaya shakes you awake today, brow creased with concern, though sometimes you wake up before she finds you with a face full of carpet. You look down and see that you didn’t quite make the last few steps, sitting at the bottom of the stairs. You brush her fingers away from your face, get to the kitchen and make breakfast. There’s no conversation today. The forks scrape across greasy porcelain glazed over with burnt bacon, misshapen eggs. She doesn’t say anything, and you don’t look at her today. You can feel the hurt between you, lying thick across the table, a wall keeping you from reaching for the salt. 

It’s a small, two-story building. In the back is the kitchen, cornered feet away is the bathroom, at least walled off, with a lockable door. The rest of the first floor is the little plantfest Kanaya happily tends to. You don’t help out today, and feel bad for it, but you have to get out.

Gamzee is not at the street corner two blocks off anymore. You come by to check, anyway. There’s always a horn, though. The exact kind of horn you think it is. It’s infuriating. You’re fucking livid looking at it, and you stomp on it a couple of times, only releasing a few deflated honks that scare off passerby’s. You sit down at the curb, pushing the horn away.

It’s not like you weren’t apprehensive to his presence, despite having spent a number of nights with him dogging your heels or sitting quietly. The memory of the last two years of your life was mostly nil, except for flashes from before of your supposed life here. You knew you once lived with Gamzee, alone, god help you. While anything strongly pale had obviously long since dissipated, it was hard to keep your hard-ass look leveled on someone as pathetic looking as Gamzee Makara was those days.

So much for his dream utopia, and messiahs, and whatever the fuck else he’d had brewing in his freak gumbo pot of a skull. You remembered that it took a while for him to quite look you in the eye again—and when he did, you noticed a feral bite to the usual muted twinkle, something that made you grit your teeth. It was familiar. But you were never going to take him as a moirail again, no. And yet, somehow, of your remaining trolls buddies, he was once all you had. 

Everything else of the last two years were patches. A high giggle here, a disconcerted look furrowed on you there, monopoly nights followed by screaming. You couldn’t quite place anything, and everything else before that–crystal clear Alternian life, SGRUB, incidents reduced to blood spatters, 3 years on the meteor–everybody you had asked insisted it was your imagination. You’d gradually quibbled it down to burbling tangents you didn’t let on too long and particular probing questions placed here on the sly, the slyiest sly that could be slyed. You weren’t out of your gourd. The nightmares were all too real for you to even try pretending.

Prying into the afterlife didn’t validate you any, though. Feferi’s monster bubblers weren’t around in this universe, not to your knowledge. Oh yeah, what a shock, that they couldn’t have a tangled knot of nightmare fuel just floating around, tentacles and gaseous deposits flopping around willy nilly! That would be too convenient! But dreams of them that could almost be misconstrued as memories scraped the insides of your head like the reality you once knew. 

And it was real.

Life alone with Gamzee, at least, nobody denied you. Bringing him up even wrought some uncomfortable silences at will when you wanted it.

The curb was cold like tile under your ass. You got up off of it and went back to the store, creatively titled ‘Flowers’, but don’t go inside. Instead, you cross the street to the opposite shop, a pet store, wavering at the window display. Inside, there were only two people working, one at the register and one feeding the kittens. The second employee had floppy and worn blue ears atop her hat, shifting erratically with any and every movement.

You reach up and  _rap-a-tap-tap_  on the window, and the ears bounce to attention.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose and Kanaya have a chat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still updating sporadically (I did post the first chapter in July, oops). I want to finish this no matter how long it takes, though I decided to not take as serious of a route. For EXAMPLE, I took off the Major Character Death warning because I've sure had enough of that in canon. Phew! 
> 
> -lunartaurus

– grimAuxiliatrix [GA] began trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] – 

GA: Hello Rose

TT: Hello, Kanaya. 

TT: Is this about your live-in pseudo-pale mate again? From what I understand of troll relationships, this seems like something you ought to directly take to him.

TT: Now where is it that he lives? Shouldn’t take long. 

GA: What 

GA: Oh No We Are Not 

GA: In That Way 

GA: Or At Least Not At Such An Advanced Stage Of Such An Arrangement 

TT: Oh no? 

GA: Oh No 

GA: Singular No I Mean 

TT: Mm! 

GA: Mm 

GA: Mm What 

TT: Singular mm. Did you have something for me? I've just finished my crossword, and I'm ready to thresh the ripe psyche of any delicate fruit intent on expending itself abruptly and in all capitals in my other tab. Or you. I can never really know. 

GA: I Suppose It Is The Usual 

GA: I Do Wish He Would Consider Speaking With You Again At Length 

GA: I Think It Would Be Helpful But He Refuses To Remain With You Unsupervised Since The Last Time 

TT: He does have this strange aversion that forces him to cower upstairs whenever I am near. Karkat has grown very intuitive of my presence, and progressively faster than I have ever seen any grown human man in flight. 

TT: So many stairs, and in a leap and a bound! Is he training for something, do you know? 

GA: No Not That I Know Of 

GA: Karkat Has Just Been Asking Questions About His Own Life 

GA: Er I Should Say Recent Life 

GA: It Just Strikes Me As Very Peculiar 

TT: He is asking questions?

GA: Yes

TT: About his past, as well as yours? Possibly tuning into the recent dabblings of other mutual chums as well, as if he were caught unawares by even the most common bits of knowledge about the most rudimentary facts of your lives? 

GA: Yes 

TT: Mm. 

GA: Why Do You Keep Mming 

TT: Mm, I was just taking another sip of a nice warm beverage. 

TT: “Memory is but the wake of a dream, endlessly fascinating in its echelons of theory regarding human consciousness, nascent in potential. How ever are we to know what cannot be learned, only studied in the raw and bleary hours of one morning?” - Esteemed scholar, Al Yankovic. 

TT: I would say Karkat would be asking about what he doesn’t know. 

GA: Of Course He Knows Though 

TT: How often does he ask?

GA: Almost Every Day 

GA: He Thinks He Is Sly About It 

GA: Subtlety Has Never Been His Strong Suit 

TT: I think he knows considerably less than you believe. 

GA: Are You Proposing 

TT: Yes?

GA: Er

GA: Are You Proposing That Karkat Somehow Lost Any Recollection Of The Last Several Years Of His Own Life 

TT: Would that be so hard to believe? Stranger things have happened. 

GA: Maybe 

GA: I Dont Know 

TT: Give it some time. 

GA: Youre Right 

GA: There Is Really Not Much Else I Can Do Now Anyway 

TT: There is one thing. 

GA: ? 

TT: I have to go in just a moment, but I wanted to confirm our plans for Friday. 

GA: Yes

TT: Yes? 

GA: Our Romantically Inclined Evening That I Specifically Invited You Alone To 

GA: And Not Any Of Your Siblings 

TT: Oh, no. Roxy is visiting with Jane and her father. The Other Two are murmuring feverishly somewhere about raps related to the upcoming presidential campaign and the new robots on stage at Chuck E Cheese's. 

TT: I was looking forward to it. 

GA: I Was Too 

TT: ;) 

TT: See you soon, Kanaya. 

– grimAuxiliatrix [GA] ceased trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] –


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karkat visits Nepeta (again).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My friend Dizzy writes pretty much any Nepeta dialogue you'll see! 
> 
> edit: oops, the dizzy credited here is whoever has the name dizzy on this site and not my Dizzy. I'm working on fixing that co-author thing.

It was half past noon, a few minutes after you first entered _Love Leijon’s Pet Shop_ , when one of the employees shooed you back out onto the street. You check your watch, hesitate in front of the shop window, and then check it again.

You’d been trying to ask Nepeta Leijon out on a date for five full weeks now. It wasn’t that you were unable to, per se. You are physically capable of making words come out of your mouth, and as far as anybody figured, you made that shit into fucking art. Anything worthy that bubbled out of your corpse-tube was in harmony with the heavens and aligned with every star in existence, even those now dead, their light only just fizzling out by the time they speckled your quiet nights.

The crush was obvious, unintentional, and to your own carefully constructed revolving door of self-disgust, growing. You lied to Kanaya about where you were going sometimes when you visited the shop, something you did about every other day, and had to restrain yourself from doing any more than that. 

Nepeta was a good friend, and while you had painfully flushed feelings for the girl, you had no idea how to coherently get them across, and you weren’t sure you wanted to risk losing her entirely.

As you turn and slink back to the way of your place, your mobile device goes off.

_‘In West Philadelphia, born and raised…’_

– arsenicCatalyst [AC] began trolling carcinogenicGallantry [CG] –

AC: :33 < hey!!

AC: :33 < sorry about katie, she just thinks you spend too much time idling around the store and that you never buy anything and that when you talk its kind of loud and unsettles the birds

AC: :33 < which, i mean, the birds are kind of sensitive

CG: OH, ARE WE ALLOWED TO SPEAK NOW? DON’T ONE OF YOUR LACKEYS CONTROL HOW YOU MISMANAGE ALL OF YOUR INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS??

CG: IS KATIE TYPING FOR YOU, TOO?

CG: YOUR SHOES ARE IN POOR TASTE, KATIE.

CG: WHO WEARS WHITE TO A PET SHOP?

CG: HOW MUCH SHIT TO YOU TROUGH THROUGH EVERY DAY??

CG: I’D LIKE AN EXACT FIGURE, PLEASE.

AC: :33 < katie is actually cleaning out the yorkie kennel right now, but i will be sure to pass along your inquiries :PP

AC: :33 < anyway im sorry i couldnt get to you! this family was really excited about taking home one of our great pyran33s puppies and i had to make sure they knew what they were doing

AC: :33 < not that they didnt s33m like nice people and all, but puppies are hard work! and its going to be bigger than their youngest daughter in like, nine months

AC: :33 < but anyway! did you n33d something? you can come back if you want and i can tell katie to stand down this time

CG: YOU ASK THAT LIKE I EVER NEED ANYTHING FROM A PET SHOP THREE TO FOUR TIMES A WEEK.

CG: SURE IT WOULD BE POLITE TO BUY SOMETHING, BUT WHAT WOULD I GET? DOG TREATS? FOR MY “DOG”?

CG: BESIDES, I KNOW THE OWNER OF THE PLACE. I DON’T WANT TO BE SHELLING OUT MONEY FOR SUCH A GODDAMN STICKLER.

_Love Leijon’s Pet Shop_ did, in fact, belong to this Leijon.

As part of the intergalactic peace treaties, uniquely titled Intergalactic Space Treaties, trolls are integrated into Earth life to help humans develop and as practice for a given troll’s future duties, whatever they may be. Some trolls, for instance, might be able to remain on Earth, and others stay only for a time after they reach adulthood before moving on to much bigger things. To get a feel of the culture, trolls are required live in human host homes until they hit their 9th sweep, and then they are granted their own Lifestands. These are residences and/or businesses. 

This shock of information lilts rapidly through your pan, like something you never really learned, but was placed there, like a chunk of poorly paced exposition. It takes a second for you to come out of your daze and notice there was a reply for you, waiting.

AC: :33 < furst of all, our prices are amazing so even if you did buy dog treats you could rest easy knowing you got the best deal on them ever

AC: :33 < secondly if you want to k33p standing awkwardly outside the window or meandering about the shop with no purrticular goal in mind then you may have to buy something just to k33p katie off your back! XPP

AC: :33 < im only kidding of course, i dont mind when you come around

CG: WHAT

CG: CAN YOU SEE ME?

You look up. She can see you. From inside, Nepeta stands at the window. Her nose is crinkled with her smile, and she waves at you, teasing the air with wiggly fingers. 

AC: :33 < its a pretty big window! the kittens in the display pen dont hide you all that well

A little woozy from a second ago, you go ahead and squat down on the pavement.

CG: CAN YOU SEE ME NOW?

AC: :33 < the top of your head is still entirely visible, yes

AC: :33 < if only it werent for that growth spurt!!

CG: YEAH. GOD FORBID I GROW ANOTHER INCH HIGHER THAN EVERYBODY WHO MAKES A HOBBY OF AGGRAVATING ME.

CG: IN ANOTHER SWEEP, I’LL BE ABLE TO USE YOU AS A FOOT REST. SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO!

AC: :33 < well, i already use you for shade, so i guess that would make us even

CG: OF COURSE.

You stand again. She and you exchange a quick glance, and then you both go back to typing from opposite sides of the glass.

CG: WHAT ARE YOU DOING, ANYWAY? DO YOU REALLY HAVE THE TIME TO BE TEASING ME THROUGH THE GLASS, BIGTIME BUSINESS LADY?

You work at a flower shop, live above it, and John sends you weekly messages that are usually worded in the exact same way: so when are you moving out of your mom’s?

AC: :33 < you can s33 inside! the only people in here are me and katie and geoff in the back, plus this guy thats just staring at the ball pythons like hes trying to make a psychic connection

AC: :33 < i have all the time in the WORLD to be teasing you through the glass

CG: I DON’T KNOW ABOUT THAT. THE GLASS IS SEE-THROUGH, REMEMBER? THERE’S A LOT OF OTHER PATHETIC ANIMALS IN DIRE NEED OF YOUR CODDLING.

With her phone in one hand, Nepeta steps forward and reaches into the kitten display to pick up one of the tiny felines, cradling it.

AC: :33 < coddling achieved :PP

CG: OH NO, THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT!

CG: YOU HAVE TO TEASE THAT LITTLE FUCKER RELENTLESSLY FOR MONTHS, FREELY SPENDING HOURS OF YOUR OWN PERSONAL TIME BUILDING A PRETTY SOLID CORDIAL DUO, AND ALL WITHOUT SAYING OR DOING ANYTHING TO PUT THAT HARD-WON FRIENDSHIP INTO ANY MORTAL PERIL!

CG: A LOT HARDER THAN WHATEVER YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING NOW.

AC: :33 < yeah, that sounds way less fun than this

CG: DO YOU REALLY HAVE TO HOLD THAT *WHILE* TROLLING?

AC: :33 < checkers likes to be held!

CG: CHECKERS?

AC: :33 < yes

AC: :33 < the kitten

CG: OH WOW.

CG: I’M GOING TO KEEP GOING WITHOUT ACKNOWLEDGING THAT, COOL?

CG: AS YOU MIGHT IMAGINE, I CAME DOWN HERE TO TELL YOU ABOUT ONE OF MY USUAL “MEMORIES” THAT MANIFEST AS HAUNTING DAYMARES UNTIL I CAN GET THEM OUT OF MY GAB RAPIDLY AND IN EXCRUCIATING DETAIL, BUT IT’S SHIT I’D RATHER WHISPER LOUDLY ABOUT THAN ACTUALLY WRITE DOWN FOR YOU TO HAVE TO *READ*. YOU MIGHT ACCIDENTALLY READ IT TWICE, AND THAT’S JUST NOT SOMETHING I CAN AFFORD.

AC: :33 < oh, so do you want to come ofur or something later and talk about it??

AC: :33 < or i could come to yours and kanayas place, or we could go somewhere completely diffurent or whatever you want

Whoa, what? Your bloodpump is suddenly a lot louder.

CG: YOU WANT TO “GO SOMEWHERE” FOR ME TO REHASH GOREY DETAILS OF A SUPPOSED “PREVIOUS LIFE” ?

AC: :33 < i mean, not purrticularly, but im just saying whatever you want to do is fine!

Your heartbeat trips over its own ass, does a gnarly flip across some bloodworks, punches you in the throat, and skips.

CG: UH

CG: NO, PROBABLY NOT. I WOULDN’T REALLY WANT TO GO OUT TO SOMEWHERE SPECIFIC OR WHATEVER FOR SOMETHING LIKE

Whoa, what the fuck did you say?

CG: WAIT FUCK

CG: I DON’T MEAN “NO,” I MEAN LIKE

CG: NOT NOW.

AC: :33 < :??

CG: MAYBE SOME OTHER TIME, YOU KNOW?

Ah, so this is what five future-yous have been trolling you ceaselessly about for the last week. In your other tab, there’s one of them now; the notifications hadn’t stopped for the last hour.

AC: :33 < oh, yeah of course!

AC: :33 < so do you want to just come over then?

Oh, my god.

Did she just ask you out?

Did you just turn Nepeta down? --twice??

Your phone held up close to your face, you squeeze your eyes shut tight as you shoot the next message, something deep and visceral in your gut curling in on itself, readying to gnaw your innards for the next several months.

CG: RAINCHECK IT. DEFINITELY. 

Yet another tab in your Trollian is on fire, shooting off one after another. You open your eyes, scroll the volume of the pings! down. It’s not one you’re allowed to flat-out ignore, though. You promised to make some effort.

CG: HOLD ON, SOME SCRUBS ARE LIGHTING UP MY OTHER CHAT.

CG: AS MUCH AS I LOVE SQUINTING AT YOU THROUGH THE GLASS, I HAVE TO PREP FOR WORK AND ALSO RESPOND TO A FEW OTHER PEOPLE IN WHAT I ASSUME IS CALLED A “SOCIAL CIRCLE.”

AC: :33 < alright! i should probably go check up on some of the other stores

AC: :33 < just let me know whenever youre ready to talk about that stuff!

CG: YEAH.

CG: OK BYE!

– carcinogenicGallantry [CG] gave up trolling arsenicCatalyst [AC] –

She’s only just turned her back from you when you gently  _bumf!_ your head into the glass pane in front of you. You check your watch.

There’s just enough time to answer some scrubs before work.


	4. An Update-

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oops...
> 
> Hey gang--anybody who happened to like this--I got so busy with college (I'm a graduating senior!) that I haven't had time for SQUAT. I am planning to rewrite this, without pesterlogs--the code required manual edits and was so much of a hassle that it was part of why I stopped writing soon as I started. I will finish a Katnep fanfiction if it kills me. So...I will be deleting this one and starting it fresh sometime soon, hopefully!

This text is a placeholder.


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